1.
Lyon
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Lyon or Lyons is a city in east-central France, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, about 470 km from Paris and 320 km from Marseille. Inhabitants of the city are called Lyonnais, Lyon had a population of 506,615 in 2014 and is Frances third-largest city after Paris and Marseille. Lyon is the capital of the Metropolis of Lyon and the region of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, the metropolitan area of Lyon had a population of 2,237,676 in 2013, the second-largest in France after Paris. The city is known for its cuisine and gastronomy and historical and architectural landmarks and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Lyon was historically an important area for the production and weaving of silk. It played a significant role in the history of cinema, Auguste, the city is also known for its famous light festival, Fête des Lumières, which occurs every 8 December and lasts for four days, earning Lyon the title of Capital of Lights. Economically, Lyon is a centre for banking, as well as for the chemical, pharmaceutical. The city contains a significant software industry with a focus on video games. Lyon hosts the headquarters of Interpol, Euronews, and International Agency for Research on Cancer. Lyon was ranked 19th globally and second in France for innovation in 2014 and it ranked second in France and 39th globally in Mercers 2015 liveability rankings. These refugees had been expelled from Vienne by the Allobroges and were now encamped at the confluence of the Saône and Rhône rivers, dio Cassius says this task was to keep the two men from joining Mark Antony and bringing their armies into the developing conflict. The Roman foundation was at Fourvière hill and was officially called Colonia Copia Felix Munatia, a name invoking prosperity, the city became increasingly referred to as Lugdunum. The earliest translation of this Gaulish place-name as Desired Mountain is offered by the 9th-century Endlicher Glossary, in contrast, some modern scholars have proposed a Gaulish hill-fort named Lugdunon, after the Celtic god Lugus, and dúnon. It then became the capital of Gaul, partly due to its convenient location at the convergence of two rivers, and quickly became the main city of Gaul. Two emperors were born in city, Claudius, whose speech is preserved in the Lyon Tablet in which he justifies the nomination of Gallic senators. Today, the archbishop of Lyon is still referred to as Primat des Gaules, the Christians in Lyon were martyred for their beliefs under the reigns of various Roman emperors, most notably Marcus Aurelius and Septimus Severus. Local saints from this period include Blandina, Pothinus, and Epipodius, in the second century AD, the great Christian bishop of Lyon was the Easterner, Irenaeus. Burgundian refugees fleeing the destruction of Worms by the Huns in 437 were re-settled by the commander of the west, Aëtius. This became the capital of the new Burgundian kingdom in 461, in 843, by the Treaty of Verdun, Lyon, with the country beyond the Saône, went to Lothair I
2.
Bus
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A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry many passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers, many types of buses, such as city transit buses and inter-city coaches, charge a fare. Other types, such as elementary or secondary school buses or shuttle buses within a post-secondary education campus do not charge a fare, in many jurisdictions, bus drivers require a special licence above and beyond a regular drivers licence. Horse-drawn buses were used from the 1820s, followed by steam buses in the 1830s, the first internal combustion engine buses, or motor buses, were used in 1895. Recently, interest has been growing in hybrid electric buses, fuel cell buses, as of the 2010s, bus manufacturing is increasingly globalised, with the same designs appearing around the world. Bus is a form of the Latin word omnibus. The first horse-drawn omnibus service was started by a businessman named Stanislas Baudry in the French city of Nantes in 1823, Nantes citizens soon gave the nickname omnibus to the vehicle. The omnibus in Nantes was a success and Baudry moved to Paris, a similar service was introduced in London in 1829. The first mechanically propelled omnibus appeared on the streets of London on 22 April 1833, in parallel to the development of the bus was the invention of the electric trolleybus, typically fed through trolley poles by overhead wires. The Siemens brothers, William in England and Ernst Werner in Germany, sir William first proposed the idea in an article to the Journal of the Society of Arts in 1881 as an. arrangement by which an ordinary omnibus. The first such vehicle, the Electromote, was made by his brother Dr. Ernst Werner von Siemens and presented to the public in 1882 in Halensee, Germany. Although this experimental vehicle fulfilled all the criteria of a typical trolleybus. Max Schiemann opened a trolleybus in 1901 near Dresden, in Germany. Although this system operated only until 1904, Schiemann had developed what is now the standard trolleybus current collection system, in the early days, a few other methods of current collection were used. Leeds and Bradford became the first cities to put trolleybuses into service in Great Britain on 20 June 1911, in Siegerland, Germany, two passenger bus lines ran briefly, but unprofitably, in 1895 using a six-passenger motor carriage developed from the 1893 Benz Viktoria. Another commercial bus line using the same model Benz omnibuses ran for a time in 1898 in the rural area around Llandudno. Daimler also produced one of the earliest motor-bus models in 1898, the vehicle had a maximum speed of 18 kph and accommodated up to 20 passengers, in an enclosed area below and on an open-air platform above. With the success and popularity of bus, Daimler expanded production, selling more buses to companies in London and, in 1899, to Stockholm
3.
Coach (bus)
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A coach is a type of vehicle used for conveying passengers on excursions and on longer-distance intercity—or even international—bus service. The term was applied to railway carriages in the 19th century, horse-drawn chariots and carriages were used by the wealthy and powerful where the roads were of a high enough standard from possibly 3000 BC. In Hungary, during the reign of King Matthias Corvinus in the 15th century and this cart of Kocs as the Hungarians called it soon became popular all over Europe. Stagecoaches were used for transport between cities from about 1500 in Great Britain until displaced by the arrival of the railways, one of the earliest motorised vehicles was the charabanc, which was used for short journeys and excursions until the early years of the 20th century. Coaches, as they hold passengers for significant periods of time on long journeys, are designed for comfort and they vary considerably in quality from country to country and within countries. Higher specification vehicles include luxury seats and air conditioning, coaches typically have only a single, narrow door, as an increased loading time is acceptable due to infrequent stops. Some characteristics include, Comfortable seats that may include a table, armrests. Comfort is considered to be an important feature in coaches, a minority of coaches are built with monocoque bodies without a chassis frame. Integrated manufacturers include Autosan, Scania, Fuso, and Alexander Dennis, major coachwork providers include Van Hool, Neoplan, Marcopolo, Irizar, MCI, Prevost, and Designline. A representative selection of vehicles currently in use in different parts of the world, a selection of vehicles in use in different parts of the world in the past. Pegaso Z-403 PD-4501 Scenicruiser GM Buffalo bus Anderson, R. C. A. and Frankis, history of Royal Blue Express Services. BBC Time Shift, The Modern Age of Coach Travel
4.
Iveco
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Iveco, an acronym for Industrial Vehicles Corporation, is an Italian industrial vehicle manufacturing company based in Turin, Italy, and entirely controlled by CNH Industrial Group. The name Iveco first appeared in 1975 after a merger of Italian, French and its production plants are in Europe, Brazil, Russia, Australia, Africa, Argentina and China, and it has approximately 5,000 points of sales and service in over 160 countries. The worldwide output of the amounts to around 150,000 commercial vehicles with a turnover of about €10,000,000,000. Iveco was incorporated on 1 January 1975, with the merger of five different brands, Fiat Veicoli Industriali, OM, Lancia Veicoli Speciali, Unic and Magirus-Deutz. Following the merger, the newly founded Iveco began rationalizing its product range, manufacturing plants and sales network, while keeping the original brands. From 1975 to 1979, the Iveco range included 200 basic models and 600 versions spanning from 2.7 tons of GVW for a vehicle to over 40 tons for heavy vehicles. In 1977 the light to medium-weight Iveco Zeta range was introduced, integrating the Fiat-OM range with the Unic and Magirus lineups was completed by 1980. Iveco moved in to work on increasing productivity and engine development, in 1978 Iveco launched the first product in the range of light vehicles branded Iveco, the Daily. In 1980 Iveco built the first turbo engine for heavy industrial vehicles. Two new divisions were formed, bus diesel engines and firefighting vehicles. In 1984 Iveco launched the TurboStar, a heavy vehicle that became a best-seller in Italy. In 1985 Iveco made the first light engine with direct injection. From 1986, Iveco S. p. A. held a 52% stake in Iveco Ford Truck Ltd, Ford plants took over production and sales of the major vehicles in the Iveco range and continued production of the Ford Cargo. In the mid-1980s, Astra, which produces dumpers and construction vehicles in Piacenza. In 1989 the first diesel engine with EGR to reduce polluting emissions compatible with commercial vehicles was produced, in 1990, the group purchased 60% control of the Spanish industrial company ENASA, which owned the industrial vehicle builder Pegaso. In the 1990s, the EuroCargo, EuroTech, EuroTrakker and EuroStar vehicles represented a total facelift for the range. The EuroCargo and the EuroTech were named Truck of the Year in 1992 and 1993 respectively and, for the first time, in 1991, the English company Seddon Atkinson was purchased and brought its long heritage of special vehicles for the construction and refuse collection industries. That same year, the first TurboDaily assembly line was inaugurated at the Nanjing Motor Corporation in China, in 1992, Iveco took over the primary constructor of industrial vehicles in Australia to form Ital, originally called International Trucks Australia
5.
CNH Global
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CNHs operations were organized into three business segments, agricultural equipment, construction equipment and financial services. CNH products are marketed globally through two families, Case and New Holland. Case IH and New Holland made up the brand family. Case and New Holland Construction made up the construction equipment brand family, in agricultural equipment, CNH was a manufacturer of agricultural tractors and combines, including hay and forage equipment and specialty harvesting equipment. Case IH manufactures agricultural tractors, balers, coffee harvesters, combines, cotton pickers, planters, sugar cane harvesters, New Holland has manufacturing facilities and offices in several countries and an international distribution network. Steyr is an Austrian manufacturer of tractors for the agricultural, forestry, in construction equipment, CNH manufactured backhoe loaders and skid-steer loaders in North America, and crawler excavators in Western Europe. CNH offered financial services under the brand name CNH Capital, CNH Capital offered financial products and services to dealers and customers in North America, Australia, Brazil and Western Europe. The principal products offered were retail financing for the purchase or lease of new and used CNH equipment, wholesale financing consisted primarily of floor plan financing and allowed dealers to purchase and maintain a representative inventory of products. The retail financing was offered in North America, Brazil, Australia and Europe through wholly owned subsidiaries, CNH brands provided after-sales parts, service and support to their customers, both at the dealerships and in the field. Parts support was offered for items in their current product lines and past products, parts distribution was operated through parts depots present on all five continents. Case inducted into the Construction Hall of Fame by the Association of Equipment Manufacturers,2012, Case celebrates its 170th year in business. For full history see Case IH1847, Cyrus Hall McCormick Sr. patents the McCormick reaper 1842,1996, Steiger Quadtrac tractor is introduced. 2006, Case IH announces new on-board module builder technology for cotton harvesting, the Case IH Module Express 625 is the first commercial cotton picker with the ability to build modules while harvesting. 2009, Case IH launches a new line of combines with six Axial-Flow models,2010, Introduction of EfficientPower Puma, Puma CVX, Magnum and Steiger & QUADRAC models, designed for lower fuel consumption. 2012, New Holland celebrates 200, 000th tractor made at its Indian plant at its facility in Greater Noida. The alliance with Kobelco includes also distribution of CNH construction equipment in Japan,2002, CNH Global entered its second joint venture in China. Shanghai New Holland Agricultural Machinery Corp. Ltd. was formed by an agreement between Shanghai Tractor, Internal Combustion Engine Corp. and CNHs New Holland brand ofagricultural equipment. CNH Global N. V. creates Fiat Kobelco Construction Machinery S. p. A. and agrees to a long term retail financing partnership across Europe with BNP PARIBAS Lease Group, the leasing arm of BNP PARIBAS
6.
Turin
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Turin is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region and was the first capital city of Italy. The city is located mainly on the bank of the Po River, in front of Susa Valley and surrounded by the western Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 892,649 while the population of the area is estimated by Eurostat to be 1.7 million inhabitants. The Turin metropolitan area is estimated by the OECD to have a population of 2.2 million, in 1997 a part of the historical center of Torino was inscribed in the World Heritage List under the name Residences of the Royal House of Savoy. Turin is well known for its Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Neo-classical, many of Turins public squares, castles, gardens and elegant palazzi such as Palazzo Madama, were built between the 16th and 18th centuries. This was after the capital of the Duchy of Savoy was moved to Turin from Chambery as part of the urban expansion, the city used to be a major European political center. Turin was Italys first capital city in 1861 and home to the House of Savoy, from 1563, it was the capital of the Duchy of Savoy, then of the Kingdom of Sardinia ruled by the Royal House of Savoy and finally the first capital of the unified Italy. Turin is sometimes called the cradle of Italian liberty for having been the birthplace and home of notable politicians and people who contributed to the Risorgimento, such as Cavour. The city currently hosts some of Italys best universities, colleges, academies, lycea and gymnasia, such as the University of Turin, founded in the 15th century, in addition, the city is home to museums such as the Museo Egizio and the Mole Antonelliana. Turins attractions make it one of the worlds top 250 tourist destinations, Turin is ranked third in Italy, after Milan and Rome, for economic strength. With a GDP of $58 billion, Turin is the worlds 78th richest city by purchasing power, as of 2010, the city has been ranked by GaWC as a Gamma World city. Turin is also home to much of the Italian automotive industry, the Taurini were an ancient Celto-Ligurian Alpine people, who occupied the upper valley of the Po River, in the center of modern Piedmont. In 218 BC, they were attacked by Hannibal as he was allied with their long-standing enemies, the Taurini chief town was captured by Hannibals forces after a three-day siege. As a people they are mentioned in history. It is believed that a Roman colony was established in 27 BC under the name of Castra Taurinorum, both Livy and Strabo mention the Taurinis country as including one of the passes of the Alps, which points to a wider use of the name in earlier times. In the 1st century BC, the Romans created a military camp, the typical Roman street grid can still be seen in the modern city, especially in the neighborhood known as the Quadrilatero Romano. Via Garibaldi traces the path of the Roman citys decumanus which began at the Porta Decumani. The Porta Palatina, on the side of the current city centre, is still preserved in a park near the Cathedral
7.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
8.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
9.
Cluj-Napoca
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Cluj-Napoca, commonly known as Cluj, is the second most populous city in Romania, after the national capital Bucharest, and the seat of Cluj County in the northwestern part of the country. Geographically, it is equidistant from Bucharest, Budapest and Belgrade. Located in the Someșul Mic River valley, the city is considered the capital to the historical province of Transylvania. From 1790 to 1848 and from 1861 to 1867, it was the capital of the Grand Principality of Transylvania. Other names for the city include, German, Klausenburg, Hungarian, Kolozsvár, Hungarian pronunciation, Medieval Latin, Castrum Clus, Claudiopolis, and Yiddish, קלויזנבורג, Kloiznburg. As of 2011,324,576 inhabitants live within the city limits, the Cluj-Napoca metropolitan area has a population of 411,379 people, while the population of the peri-urban area exceeds 420,000 residents. The new metropolitan government of Cluj-Napoca became operational in December 2008, the city spreads out from St. Michaels Church in Unirii Square, built in the 14th century and named after the Archangel Michael, the patron saint of Cluj-Napoca. The boundaries of the municipality contain an area of 179.52 square kilometres, Cluj-Napoca experienced a decade of decline during the 1990s, its international reputation suffering from the policies of its mayor at the time, Gheorghe Funar. Today, the city is one of the most important academic, cultural, industrial, in 2015, Cluj-Napoca was European Youth Capital. On the site of the city was a settlement named Napoca. After the AD106 Roman conquest of the area, the place was known as Municipium Aelium Hadrianum Napoca, the first written mention of the citys current name – as a Royal Borough – was in 1213 under the Medieval Latin name Castrum Clus. With respect to the name of this camp, it is accepted as a derivation from the Latin term clausa – clusa, meaning closed place, strait. Similar senses are attributed to the Slavic term kluč, meaning a key, the Latin and Slavic names have been attributed to the valley that narrows or closes between hills just to the west of Cluj-Mănăștur. An alternative hypothesis relates the name of the city to its first magistrate, the Hungarian form Kolozsvár, first recorded in 1246 as Kulusuar, underwent various phonetic changes over the years, the variant Koloswar first appears in a document from 1332. Its Saxon name Clusenburg/Clusenbvrg appeared in 1348, but from 1408 the form Clausenburg was used, the Romanian name of the city used to be spelled alternately as Cluj or Cluș, the latter being the case in Mihai Eminescus Poesis. In 1974, the communist authorities added -Napoca to the name as a nationalist gesture. The full name is used outside of official contexts. In Yiddish it is known as קלאזין or קלויזענבורג, the nickname treasure city was acquired in the late 16th century, and refers to the wealth amassed by residents, including in the precious metals trade
10.
Romania
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Romania is a sovereign state located in Southeastern Europe. It borders the Black Sea, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia and it has an area of 238,391 square kilometres and a temperate-continental climate. With over 19 million inhabitants, the country is the member state of the European Union. Its capital and largest city, Bucharest, is the sixth-largest city in the EU, the River Danube, Europes second-longest river, rises in Germany and flows in a general southeast direction for 2,857 km, coursing through ten countries before emptying into Romanias Danube Delta. The Carpathian Mountains, which cross Romania from the north to the southwest are marked by one of their tallest peaks, Moldoveanu, modern Romania was formed in 1859 through a personal union of the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. The new state, officially named Romania since 1866, gained independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1877, at the end of World War I, Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia united with the sovereign Kingdom of Romania. Romania lost several territories, of which Northern Transylvania was regained after the war, following the war, Romania became a socialist republic and member of the Warsaw Pact. After the 1989 Revolution, Romania began a transition back towards democracy and it has been a member of NATO since 2004, and part of the European Union since 2007. A strong majority of the population identify themselves as Eastern Orthodox Christians and are speakers of Romanian. The cultural history of Romania is often referred to when dealing with artists, musicians, inventors. For similar reasons, Romania has been the subject of notable tourist attractions, Romania derives from the Latin romanus, meaning citizen of Rome. The first known use of the appellation was attested in the 16th century by Italian humanists travelling in Transylvania, Moldavia, after the abolition of serfdom in 1746, the word rumân gradually fell out of use and the spelling stabilised to the form român. Tudor Vladimirescu, a leader of the early 19th century. The use of the name Romania to refer to the homeland of all Romanians—its modern-day meaning—was first documented in the early 19th century. The name has been officially in use since 11 December 1861, in English, the name of the country was formerly spelt Rumania or Roumania. Romania became the predominant spelling around 1975, Romania is also the official English-language spelling used by the Romanian government. The Neolithic-Age Cucuteni area in northeastern Romania was the region of the earliest European civilization. Evidence from this and other sites indicates that the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture extracted salt from salt-laden spring water through the process of briquetage
11.
Kortrijk
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Kortrijk is a Belgian city and municipality located in the Flemish province West Flanders. It is the capital and largest city of the arrondissement of Kortrijk, the wider municipality comprises the city of Kortrijk proper and the villages of Aalbeke, Bellegem, Bissegem, Heule, Kooigem, Marke, and Rollegem. Kortrijk is part of the cross-border Eurometropolis Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai, which had 2,155,161 residents in 2008, the city is situated on the Leie,42 km southwest of Ghent and 25 km northeast of Lille in France. In addition, Mouscron in Wallonia is located just south of Kortrijk, both Kortrijk and Lille are part of the same transnational Eurodistrict urban agglomeration with around 1,900,000 inhabitants. As the biggest city of southern West Flanders, Kortrijk has many schools, hospitals, Kortrijk originated from a Gallo-Roman town, called Cortoriacum at a crossroads near the Leie river and two Roman roads. During the Middle Ages, Kortrijk grew significantly thanks to the flax and wool industry with France and England, in 1820, the Treaty of Kortrijk was signed, which laid out the current borders between France and Belgium. Throughout the 19th and 20th century, Kortrijk became a center of the flax industry, today, Kortrijk is the largest city in southern West-Flanders with several hospitals, colleges and a university. Kortrijk was the first city in Belgium with a shopping street. Nowadays, a big part of the city center is a complete pedestrian area with lots of shops. Another shopping mall is located near the edge of the city. Cortoriacum was a typical Gallo-Roman vicus at an important crossroads near the Leie river and it was situated on the crossroads of the Roman roads linking Tongeren and Cassel and Tournai and Oudenburg. In the 9th century, Baldwin II, Count of Flanders established fortifications against the Vikings, the town gained its city charter in 1190 from Philip, Count of Flanders. The population growth required new defensive walls, part of which can still be seen today, in the 13th century, the battles between Fernando of Portugal, Count of Flanders and his first cousin, King Louis VIII of France, led to the destruction of the city. The Counts of Flanders had it rebuilt soon after, to promote industry and weaving in the town, Joan, Countess of Flanders exempted settlers in Kortrijk from property tax. From that time, Kortrijk gained great importance as a centre of linen production, in 1302, the population of Bruges started a successful uprising against the French, who had annexed Flanders a couple of years earlier. On 18 May the French population in that city was massacred and this date is now remembered as a national holiday by the whole Flemish community. Following a new uprising by the Flemish in 1323, but this time against their own Count Louis I and these Flemish acquisitions were consolidated by the French at the Battle of Cassel. Most of the 15th century was prosperous under the Dukes of Burgundy, until the death of the Burgundian heiress, Mary of Burgundy, in 1482, the 16th century was marked by the confrontations engendered by the Reformation and the uprising of the Netherlands against Spain
12.
Belgium
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Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a sovereign state in Western Europe bordered by France, the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, and the North Sea. It is a small, densely populated country which covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres and has a population of about 11 million people. Additionally, there is a group of German-speakers who live in the East Cantons located around the High Fens area. Historically, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were known as the Low Countries, the region was called Belgica in Latin, after the Roman province of Gallia Belgica. From the end of the Middle Ages until the 17th century, today, Belgium is a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. It is divided into three regions and three communities, that exist next to each other and its two largest regions are the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in the north and the French-speaking southern region of Wallonia. The Brussels-Capital Region is a bilingual enclave within the Flemish Region. A German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia, Belgiums linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its political history and complex system of governance, made up of six different governments. Upon its independence, declared in 1830, Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa. This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching reforms, resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement during the period from 1970 to 1993. Belgium is also a member of the Eurozone, NATO, OECD and WTO. Its capital, Brussels, hosts several of the EUs official seats as well as the headquarters of major international organizations such as NATO. Belgium is also a part of the Schengen Area, Belgium is a developed country, with an advanced high-income economy and is categorized as very high in the Human Development Index. A gradual immigration by Germanic Frankish tribes during the 5th century brought the area under the rule of the Merovingian kings, a gradual shift of power during the 8th century led the kingdom of the Franks to evolve into the Carolingian Empire. Many of these fiefdoms were united in the Burgundian Netherlands of the 14th and 15th centuries, the Eighty Years War divided the Low Countries into the northern United Provinces and the Southern Netherlands. The latter were ruled successively by the Spanish and the Austrian Habsburgs and this was the theatre of most Franco-Spanish and Franco-Austrian wars during the 17th and 18th centuries. The reunification of the Low Countries as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands occurred at the dissolution of the First French Empire in 1815, although the franchise was initially restricted, universal suffrage for men was introduced after the general strike of 1893 and for women in 1949. The main political parties of the 19th century were the Catholic Party, French was originally the single official language adopted by the nobility and the bourgeoisie
